IDW Publishing and Tom Beland unleash Chicacabra

Tom Beland, best known for his multiple Eisner-nominated series True Story, Swear to God, brings his unique storytelling to IDW this June in an all-new graphic novel series, Chicacabra.

Chicacabra is a story infused with the humanity for which Tom’s work is so rightly acclaimed, but this time, Tom has written and illustrated an all-new cast of very human characters in a more supernatural setting.

“Tom Beland’s work is the perfect mix of comic-book storytelling with expressive art, interesting characters, and a resonant, emotional core,” said Chris Ryall, IDW’s Chief Creative Officer-Editor-in-Chief, “and I couldn’t be happier to see him apply those skills in this new way on Chicacabra. Tom’s books have always been the kind of thing you want to hand someone, whether they’re new to comics or a veteran reader who thinks they’ve seen it all. There’s something for everyone in his work, and never moreso than with Chicacabra, which pushes into the supernatural while still staying a fundamentally grounded, human tale.”

In Chicacabra, you would think being a young woman in high school would come with more than enough drama, but for Isabel Sanchez that is a mere drop in the bucket of her life. On the outside, Isabel looks and acts like your average Puerto Rican girl but after a family tragedy and then a mysterious incident she finds herself with a monster capable of great brutality living inside her. But is it her friend or foe?

Isabel will have to learn to life with a killing machine inside her and navigate high school in this first in a series of planned Chicacabra graphic novels. And heads will roll, to say the least!

“I think people will relate to Isabel. I think we all have a chupacabra in us in some way. There’s fear, doubt, many things that you hold deep inside of yourself,” said Tom Beland, “This is about two souls working together in a relationship that could be damaging as well as healing. I love making it. To a degree it was as emotional as making TSSTG.”

Chicacabra will be available in a regular edition and a special version with an alternate cover only available at the Puerto Rico Comic-Con, May 24-25 at the Puerto Rico Convention Center.

IDW is an award-winning publisher of comic books, graphic novels and trade paperbacks, based in San Diego, California. Renowned for its diverse catalog of licensed and independent titles, IDW publishes some of the most successful and popular titles in the industry, including: Hasbro’s The TRANSFORMERS, G.I. JOE and MY LITTLE PONY; Paramount’s Star Trek; Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; 2000AD’s Judge Dredd; The Rocketeer; Toho’s Godzilla; Wizards of the Coast’s Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons; and the Eisner-Award winning Locke & Key series, created by best-selling author Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez. IDW is also home to the Library of American Comics imprint, which publishes classic comic reprints, Yoe! Books, a partnership with Yoe! Studio, and the multiple award-winning Artist’s Edition imprint.

IDW’s critically- and fan-acclaimed series are continually moving into new mediums. Currently, Jerry Bruckheimer Films and Disney are creating a feature film based on World War Robot; Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Warner Brothers are producing a film based on Ashley Wood’s Lore; Michael Bay‘s Platinum Dunes and Sony are bringing Zombies vs. Robots to film, Kurtzman/Orci are producing a movie based on Locke & Key at Universal.